Meek mortals with weak morals played weekly?

Team Protagonist meets at Hill Manor Apartments (Chance’s home) to discuss the aftermath of Chapter 1. Dr. Shaw is interested in collecting more strange artifacts from the Hedge, Officer Lewis wants to find and arrest Schultz (and maybe the Lost, and maybe the rest of the Party), and Chance wants to know why everyone is in his damn house. Peter Oak (Conspiracy Theorist/Web blogger) is introduced to the party by living here as well.

Oh snap- ghosts and shit. A gunshot is heard from somewhere up above and the apartment building is suddenly trapped in a black void. Outside a macabre storm of blood and bits of bone rains against the windows. Descending down below the fourth floor is impossible and no means of contacting the outside seem to work. Ghosts have possessed most of the residents of the apartment complex and try to make a meal of our heroes!

After killing a few possessed tenants and searching for clues our champions make it to the penthouse apartment, uncovering the body of Sullivan Barnes and meeting his disembodied yet chatty spirit. The ghost of Sullivan Barnes goes into prologue mode and explains the harrowing events that led up to their otherworldly entrapment – four score and 20 years ago a Mr. Josiah Hill had fled to the city at it’s founding constructed a large mansion on this very same property. Unfortunately for Mr Hill whatever he was fleeing from caught up and killed him and all but one of his servants in a massive fire. The sole survivor was the very same Sullivan Barnes relaying this tale from beyond the grave. Barnes had used materials from the mansions that survived the blaze and built Hill Manor Apartments on the very same place Josiah Hill’s mansion had once stood. A mystic network of ‘ley lines’ that runs through this area had trapped the souls of Josiah Hill (and servants) for the past 100 years. Either Mr Hill and all his servants were originally crazed killers hell-bent on slaying the living or a century of imprisonment in a tortured state between life and death had soured their demeanor.

Armed with magic talismans that allowed them to directly attack the possessing spirits and knowledge of the past (but mostly the talismans) our brave adventurers fought their way through packs of possessed neighbors and haunted hallways to collect a fetter closely bound to Josiah Hill and took it to the roof. While in the heart of the ghastly storm they fended off the frenzied shades long enough to tie the fetter to a lightning rod and let the otherworldly lightning destroy Josiah Hill once and for all.

Josiah Hill was vanquished and Hill Manor along with all of its inhabitants were returned back to our world safe and sound. While Sullivan Barnes was still deceased (victim of a murder-suicide from a tenant possessed directly by Hill at the start of all this) only Dr Shaw, Chance, Officer Lewis, and Peter seemed to remember the events that had unfolded. The city was safe once more.

Our protagonists meet for the first time while searching for a known criminal – Martin Schultz. Each member of the party is a mortal who has infiltrated a meeting of the city’s Changings. Schultz has abducted local child Joey Duncan and sold him to the changlings who plan to break the child’s mind as part of a ritual to safeguard the city from the True Fae. An agent of the Fae kidnaps (re-kidnaps?) the child and tries to escape into the Hedge to prevent the ritual. Team Party joins up with Schultz and a changling named Clark.

Team Party + Shultz + Clark plunge into the Hedge hot on the trail of the kidnapper and missing child. They overcome a few inquisitive bird-men and leap over a giant fissure while somehow staying on the trail. Eventually the find the kidnapper (a changling who resembles a fly, Cancer John) but learn he’s lost the little kid somewhere in the brambles. Our heroes set Cancer John free and continue on looking for little Joey Duncan.

Our champions bravely bushwhack a path through the bristling brambles and eventually come upon a small house filled with strange assorted items from the mortal world. Inside is the mad manikin Doll. Doll has taken Joey as his friend and won’t let the PCs take him, at least not on all him. Our protagonists decide that negotiations for the child have broken down and shoot Doll’s stupid plastic face full of lead. They rescue the terrified kid and with Clark’s help make their way back to Midtown.

Once the party and child have returned to Midtown there is a short debate as to the fate of the child. They have seen first hand the bizarre and dangerous world of the Hedge, but is traumatizing this child (more than what’s already happened) worth protecting the city for a year? They don’t know, and don’t really make much of an argument either way, so the ritual continues. At the last minute Cancer John’s Arcadian master appears – a gentlemanly old chap dressed like a victorian age doctor. He’s come to stop the ritual and starts carving up the local changlings. The party rallies the Lost and manages to beat back the Knifed Man, but not before he’s pledge vengeance on the party for their involvement!

The ritual is completed. Joey Duncan’s mind is shattered into a nightmarish goo. The city is safe once more.